Amazon pilots 30-hour work week

The company is piloting a program of teams entirely composed of 30-hour-per-week workers.

According to an Eventbrite posting last week, the company has been testing the idea of part-time technical teams -- not a new concept in itself, but new in that all members of the teams are on the 30-hour schedule.

“We want to create a work environment that is tailored to a reduced schedule and still fosters success and career growth,” the company wrote in the event ad.

14. Besides Texas, California is the only other state with more than one city on the list.

San Jose, Calif.

14. Besides Texas, California is the only other state with more than one city on the list.

Photo: AFP, AFP/Getty Images

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Louisville, Ky.

13. It isn't all horse racing and dramatic hats. The city celebrates reading and writing with an annual Writer's Block Festival.

Louisville, Ky.

13. It isn't all horse racing and dramatic hats. The city celebrates reading and writing with an annual Writer's Block Festival.

Photo: Getty Images

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Charlotte

12. In Charlotte, N.C., a park known as The Green is an all-out literary celebration: Bronze sculptures depict literary classics, and artwork throughout the park feature the names and words of famous writers.

Just how literary is Baltimore, Md.? The city's NFL team, the Ravens, was named for an Edgar Allan Poe poem.

Baltimore

11.

Just how literary is Baltimore, Md.? The city's NFL team, the Ravens, was named for an Edgar Allan Poe poem.

Photo: Visions Of America, Getty Images

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San Diego

10. San Diego cracked the top 10 this year. But adult coloring books were among the top-selling print material here, so Amazon's defining "well-read" pretty loosely.

San Diego

10. San Diego cracked the top 10 this year. But adult coloring books were among the top-selling print material here, so Amazon's defining "well-read" pretty loosely.

Photo: MARK J. TERRILL, AP

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Albuquerque

9. Albuquerque, N.M., ordered a lot of adult coloring books, too. But "The Girl on the Train," by Paula Hawkins, was the top-selling title in print and on Kindle.

Albuquerque

9. Albuquerque, N.M., ordered a lot of adult coloring books, too. But "The Girl on the Train," by Paula Hawkins, was the top-selling title in print and on Kindle.

Photo: Susan Montoya Bryan, STF

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Denver

8. Denver claims some literary cred: It was important to the Beat Generation, and both Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg spent time there. The city is also home to one of the country's great independent bookstores, the Tattered Cover.

5. Austin residents may be willing to wait in a long line at Franklin Barbecue. But they simply clicked a button to order "Franklin Barbecue: A Meat-Smoking Manifesto," one of the city's top-selling Kindle and print titles.

TECH NEWS

Workers in the pilot program will have core hours of 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Thursday, with flex hours throughout the week. They’ll be paid 75 percent of full-time pay, but still receive the same benefits as full-time employees.

The program seems likely to score a few positive points for the company a little more than a year after a New York Times story painted a picture of a terrifyingly competitive, work-til-you-break workplace. In response, Amazon's Jay Carney (former White House Press Secretary) was quick to paint the NYT piece as something of a hatchet job, and a Times' public editor wrote a column weighing whether the piece was fair.

Either way, the event posting from last week hinted at changing ideas of healthy workplace culture.

“This initiative was created with Amazon's diverse workforce in mind and the realization that the traditional full-time schedule may not be a "one size fits all" model,” the company wrote in the posting.